Crept Up On Me
by perfect.imperfectionxo
Summary: He'd never imagined she'd actually live, let alone become everything to him.


**Author's Note; **To anyone who was reading my syot- sorry. Fanfiction deleted it. Anywho, this is a little Odesta fic I wrote a while back. I didn't like it too much then, but it' recently crept upon me (hehe, title ref guiz?) Anywho, enjoy and I don't own Hunga Games or it's characters~

* * *

She'd crept up on him, like spring crept up and warmed the Earth after the winter's harsh cold.

One day she was the tribute he was destined to never see again, and the next she was a Victor, destined to join him in mentoring more ill-fated adolescents to their death.

It was more than that, though, when she won the 70th Games. It was more than just a victory for District Four, a tribute who survived, someone new to aid him while he prepared for kids for their impending doom. (That was how he saw it. He might have been a career, but it was evident that District Four didn't do much winning.)

The day she won was the day he noticed her. (That's a lie - he'd noticed her as soon as she was reaped. He just hadn't paid mind to it. She was going to die, after all.)

He'd been called to the Capitol on one of their whims. They always wanted him at the worst times. He'd finished with a... client, and looked up to see the television screen displaying the Games. Or, what was supposed to be the Games. All there was was water where a meadow should have been, muddy water and branches whisking around as a flood overtook the arena.

A grin formed on his face.

District Four was in the Game still, and he knew his tribute was a swimmer.

One by one, the remaining tributes drowned. He kept his fingers crossed, hoping his girl would hold on. First the District Three girl went under, and the cannon sounded. The cameras moved to his girl, Annie was her name, and Annie held on to a branch while she struggled to catch her breath. She would do it, though. She was tough.

District Six's boy was next, and then the District One pair. Without this, everyone would have been out of luck. They'd been extra tough this year.

It was down to Annie and the District Three boy. He'd outlived his District partner, but now the rock he'd been holding on to slipped loose. Annie's hands were slipping, too, but she released.

Swim to safety, he said to himself. You only need to outlast District Three.

A wave crashed in to the District Three boy, launching him in to the same heavy rock he'd lost his grip on. He screamed as the air was knocked out of him, and the water battered him again and again against the rock. He struggled out of it's path, but he wasn't a swimmer. He lost his ability to control himself, and the water shot him once again against the rock. His neck cracked as it hit the rock's edge. The snap was audible to th camera.

The cannon sounded.

Within a minute a hovercraft was pulling shaking and cold Annie Cresta out of the water. Her eyes were wide and glazed over, but besides shock she seemed okay.

His fingers uncrossed, and he clapped softly.

The Capitol woman, a short little thing with big high heels and bright pink hair, put a hand on his shoulder.

"What is it?" She asked him.

"Annie won," he responded with a grin.

The day Annie Cresta won was the day he realized that he'd underestimated such a beautiful girl.

* * *

She continued to creep up on him after she won, becoming the friend he needed and something to take his mind off of the Games and the Capitol.

No one understands loss like a victor. Or pain, or death. She understood him like no one else could.

She was different, though, after the Games. She wasn't as excitable or enthusiastic as she had been the last time he'd seen her before, the first time he'd kissed her.

He always tried to play with his tributes. It was easy and not forced, not like the games the Capitol tried to play. The girls always fell for his charm, too.

Annie had been one of them. Mags had got made at him.

"She's only fifteen," she scolded him. He was twenty. He didn't care then. He'd never see her again.

Her age never did matter. They became best friends. He became her rock, and he taught her all his knots and how to use the rope to calm herself. He taught her that different was okay, even when everyone began to know her as "the mad victor from District Four".

She was more than that. He hated it, because no one took the time to see past her problems.

She always seemed to be in her own little world, even when she was with him. He liked it. He liked distracting her from it, and making her feel better, and watching her laugh as he snapped her fingers in front of her face to bring her back to him.

* * *

He was in the Capitol when he realized what she meant to him.

He realized how wrong it felt, being with the Capitol ladies. (It always felt wrong - it just felt worse now. He felt like he was betraying her.)

He told her he loved her on the beaches of District Four. They'd been sitting on the beach, hands in the sand, his arm around her back. He whispered it softly in her ear, and she blushed as red as a rose. He called her beautiful, he told her about every single thing he loved about her - and the list went on.

Her response? "I love you, too. I always have."

It felt like the best day of his life.

* * *

He remembered the day President Snow announced the twist for the 3rd Quarter Quell.

All he could do was hold on to Annie, and blame the stupid District Twelve girl from the year before.

The Capitol wanted her dead. They were doing it to off her in a way that wouldn't make them seem bad. After all - quell twists were "chosen when the Games were made". He didn't believe that for one second. It was too convenient, that the quell after the rebellious Everdeen girl and her winner-by-chance boyfriend won would be the one that the Victors had to fight in... Again.

He talked to Mags, his old mentor. She gave him a smile, promised that she would let no harm come to his precious little Annie.

He owed her big time. She denied it, saying it was nothing, as she as well had learned to love little Annie, but he owed her, big time.

He was in on the rebellion forming, though, for his precious mad girl. She deserved better than the harsh world she was forced in to.

* * *

Katniss hadn't liked him when the Game started, nor trusted him. He was okay with that. As much as he hid it, he hated her. If she wasn't chosen to be the one to save his Annie, even if she didn't know it, he didn't like Katniss. He understood, though, why it was her. She had spunk in her, and a recently lit flame that had all of Panem's attention. He was the washed-up sex symbol of Panem, holding back for his girl back home while he forced himself to accept the advances of the Capitol girls.

Maybe he just envied her. He didn't like her, though.

He lost his Mags for her bread boy. It hit him hard, and though she was part of the cause to keep Katniss and her bread boy alive, he couldn't help but spite Katniss for it. She brought a long the damn boy.

He'd saved the Mellark boy, though, he had to remember. He had to.

He couldn't let the rebellion die.

He couldn't give up on a better life for Annie, one without the torture of the Games.

* * *

The arena had been a clock.

In one hour, jabberjays flew free. He hadn't known that. He hadn't known that until the sound of Annie's shreiks pierced his ears, noise replicated by the mind-wrenching birds.

He had felt like everything apart. Jabberjays repeat what they hear. They heard her scream.

The Capitol had Annie.

They were going to hurt her.

His heart shattered, and he had felt like falling to the ground and begging for mercy.

It was Katniss's fault, of course. She brought them there.

He tried to be civil, though, even as he slowly fell apart.

He couldn't wait to get home and save her.

* * *

The day Katniss blew up the arena, only her, Beetee, and him got saved.

He secretly was glad that the Capitol got their hands on Peeta. She finally knew what it was like.

He helped her, though. He taught her knots and told her all about his precious little Annie. It broke his heart, and didn't help him trying to relax, but he knew they would save her. (They as in District Thirteen, of course.)

They wouldn't let an innocent girl get tortured about a rebellion she didn't know existed.

She was back in no time, too. He never left her side from the moment he saw her pretty little face and sea-green eyes.

Peeta was back, too, but he was incomplete. He'd never be the same. Again he felt secretely pleased about this.

Katniss Everdeen couldn't have it all.

* * *

He changed his mind the day they got married.

It was the best day of his life, not the day he told her of his love.

Because, finally, little Annie Cresta, now Odair, was his. Forever and eternally, she was his, and he loved the feeling.

He took her for the first time that night. He'd refused to before. It had to be special, not like the Capitol women he swore to never touch ever again even if the rebellion failed.

It was beautiful, the sound of her breath heavy in his ears, her body against his in the best way he'd ever felt. He wouldn't change that for anything. Nothing at all.

* * *

He had a mission, though. He was quickly being pulled away from her against his will.

He kissed her goodbye softly, whispered sweet words of love in her ear, and promised he would return to her soon.

She wouldn't let him go. She wrapped her arms tight around him, kissed him feverishly, and begged him not to go. She begged him not to go.

As much as he didn't want to release her, he knew he had to. He was doing this, all of this, just for her, and he couldn't back out now that they were close to their goal.

"I'll be back," he promised her once more as he kissed her neck, her cheek, her lips. "I love you." Once last kiss on the lips, and he was out.

He hadn't known it would be the last time he saw his precious little mad girl, or that she would carry on as well as she did without him. (She knew it's what he would have wanted, and that he did it all for her.)

He died for her. He died for her and the girl on fire, but in the end just for her.

He gave her the life she deserved.

And she, in turn, was crept up on by a tiny bronze-haired little boy who she grew to love with all her heart. A little boy who she would tell all about the life his father lived, of his loyalty and quirks, the way he would whisper in to her ear silly little things and the way his last kiss with her made her realize it was all going to be okay.

It was wierd without him, of course, and she never moved on, but she couldn't waste her life on nothing. (He would have disproved, of course.)

Forever and always, Annie Cresta-Odair would remember her one true love through his beautiful mirror-image child, a handsome little baby boy who she named Andrew Finnick Odair.


End file.
